Ingredients

• • 4 ½ cups White Lily Unbleached Self-Rising Flour
• • ⅔ cup white sugar
• • 11 tbsp salted butter
• • 1 cup milk
• • ½ cup pineapple juice
• • 3 tbsp brown sugar
• • 6 sliced pineapple rings
• • 6 maraschino cherries

So many of my memories from my life are centered around food, as it is for so many people. But cooking and baking was a way to showcase love and care in my house, my mother’s house, my grandmother’s house, my great-grandmother’s house, you name the place, and there was always someone making up something to share. Each time I make one of our family recipes, I am immediately brought back to a moment shared with my loved ones over a meal. It’s such a special way to connect to all of my family, both past and present.

One recipe that sticks with me is my grandmother’s Pineapple Upside Down cake. Whenever my grandmother, Mama, pulled on one of her floral house-coats that hung on the back of her bedroom door, I knew she was headed to the kitchen to make something wonderful, usually in her cast-iron skillet. She fed her five sons and all of their children from that skillet—spirit-lifting food like yeast biscuits, pineapple upside-down cake, fried chicken, and fried bologna for sandwiches on white bread with mayo. When I inherited the skillet, I treasured it for everything it brought to mind: Mama standing at her avocado-green stove, the percolator on the counter always full of coffee, the comfort and warmth of her cozy kitchen in her tiny house, and the loving touch she bestowed upon everything she fed her family. But I had no idea where that skillet would lead, or the dishes I would come to create with it. You’d think her skillet had some kind of magic, but what it really possesses is the taste of a family history’s worth of good cooking. And maybe that is some kind of magic, the magic of seasoning.

Flash forward to my own daughters in their late teens and early twenties, the shared memories of food are still going strong. I’ve decided to revisit Mama’s classic Pineapple Upside Down cake recipe and take a Callie’s twist on it, as I’ve done for so many recipes over the years. This delicious biscuit cake is made from golden-baked shortcake biscuits infused with pineapple juice topped with the ooey gooey goodness of caramelized pineapple rings and sweet, sugary maraschino cherries. The shortcake biscuits soak up some of that simple brown sugar caramel and create a flavor bomb when you bite into one.

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF.
2. Add flour and sugar to a large mixing bowl. Add 8 tablespoons of salted butter and work it into the mix in a snapping motion with your fingers. Once your mix is the consistency of grated Parmesan cheese, make a well in the center.
3. Combine the pineapple juice and milk just before adding the mixture to your biscuit mix. Mix with your hands until the dough is wet and sticky. Be careful not to overwork the dough. If more liquid is needed to absorb the flour, add additional milk.
4. Liberally dust the dough, rolling surface, rolling pin, and cutter with the remaining mix. Flip the dough onto a dusted surface. Roll the dough using a rolling pin until it is 2 inches thick.
5. Cut the biscuits with a round cutter, placing to the side on a sheet of parchment paper.
6. In a cast iron skillet, melt the remaining 3 tbsp butter and brown sugar on medium-low heat. Once melted, make sure the mixture is spread across the bottom of the pan to cover. Place pineapple rings around the outside, with the last remaining in the center. In each ring’s hole, add a maraschino cherry.
7. Place biscuits in a circle around the outside edge, then fill the center with additional biscuits. The biscuits should touch to ensure an even rise.
8. Bake for 16-18 minutes, turning halfway through.
9. Once finished baking, turn the skillet onto your serving dish to reveal the caramelized pineapple. Enjoy!
   

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